I wasn’t taught anything about loyalties or divided loyalties when I was a child, but they’re both something I was aware of from a very early age. Being a sensitive child I was aware of most things.

By nature, a child’s response will always be influenced by their parents’ relationship with each other. When parents’ work together as a team, children will have little cause to come between their parents. It’s often the different parenting styles that cause divided loyalties in the first place, when children get to choose the parent they want the closer relationship with.

For some of us friendships may also create divided loyalties, where two friends agree on something and the third doesn’t and sides are taken. The same thing may also happen in families, where being close to one parent means being disloyal to the other, although it’s not always done on a conscious level.

As a child I was constantly weighing everything up. It’s not always enough to take someone’s word or side without understanding the sentiments behind their words. All too often we take sides without understanding everything there is to know and why that person would go on to say what they say.

All sentiments must be loyal or there’s no point in having them. One thing I do know is that if our sentiments were loyal we’d have less cause to have to deal with divided loyalties.

2 Responses to “Divided loyalties”

I was closer to my father and didn’t know why until I became older. My father was closer to me than my sister and my mom was closer to my sister than me, but they both loved us. Part of the reason my father was closer to me was because I was an ill child with diabetes.

Now that I think about it my parents’ relationship changed when I became diagnosed. There seemed to be a space between them after that. I don’t know if I knew it then but I know it now. I can understand the stress having a child with special needs can put on a relationship, as I am in that situation now but my relationship with my husband hasn’t changed since we became parents of a special needs child. We show love for each other in front of him with hugs and kisses and ‘I love you’s’.

In relationships with friends I was always the odd man out. I had different beliefs than my friends even though I tried to do things like they did, but I just couldn’t get into that life style. It was wrong in my mind and I knew it.

To have loyalties means to have responsibilities. You have to maintain them and stay loyal to that person or people.

Thanks Lisa. Yes it’s only often when we reflect and look back on all our relationships that we can see how things turn out.

Having CP I can see why my family were mostly divided, but when we’re children it’s not something we see or can change; it’s up to our parents. It’s also not something easily understood, it’s only in time that we see it.

I agree with you about responsibilities and loyalties. We all have responsibility to ourselves and each other and we have to maintain both of those loyally to be able to have any meaningful relationship.